BOSTON – From the banks of the Charles River, the Red Sox continue to do what every global superpower secretly envies: export a mythology so potent that even people who have never seen a baseball can hum “Sweet Caroline” after three beers in a Dublin pub. The team’s 2024 season may look, to the untrained…
The World Holds Its Breath While a Handful of People in Washington Whisper About a Number By Our Special Correspondent in the Departure Lounge of Monetary Purgatory If aliens ever bothered to tune into Earth’s financial news, they’d assume the species worships a deity known only as “the Fed.” Every six weeks, priests in business-casual…
They say a passport is just a very expensive souvenir, but try explaining that to the 1.2 billion people who don’t have one that actually works. From the maple-scented booklet in Toronto to the burgundy talisman coveted in Lagos, the modern “citizenship test” has become less a quiz on parliamentary trivia and more a global…
Spirit Airlines Flight 696, now immortalized on TikTok as “Air Force One-and-a-Half,” did not, in fact, carry any heads of state. It did, however, transport 173 passengers from Fort Lauderdale to Santo Domingo while one gentleman—let’s call him Señor Goliat, because that’s what the Dominican press insists on—attempted to storm the cockpit armed with nothing…
Somewhere between the 23rd UN Climate Summit and the 42nd COP press release, the planet decided to outsource its last remaining postcard weather to San Diego, California. Delegates who have spent years arguing over half-degree Celsius targets in windowless halls in Bonn or Dubai now step off the plane at Lindbergh Field, inhale 72 °F…
PARIS—Somewhere between the croissants and the creeping dread of late-stage capitalism, the world received its latest cinematic love letter: “The Summer I Turned Pretty” (colloquially “TSITP”) has been adapted into a feature-length film. Global markets trembled—mostly because teenagers collectively emptied their parents’ streaming-service budgets, but still, tremors were recorded in Singapore, São Paulo, and that…
In the grand, gilded circus tent that is the United States Senate, where septuagenarian lions still roar and octogenarian tight-rope walkers refuse to install a net, one act keeps drawing the world’s gaze: Chuck Grassley, the 90-year-old Iowan who has spent more cumulative hours on the Senate floor than most of us have spent on…
Bayern Munich vs Chelsea F.C.: A Timeline of Cosmic Irony, Financial Doping, and the Beautiful Game’s Slow-Motion Car Crash By Dave’s Locker International Desk 19 May 2012 – Allianz Arena, Munich In the city where beer halls still debate the existential merits of 0.5-litre vs 1-litre steins, Chelsea—managed by a man whose last name sounds…
The Chancellor’s Little Red Briefcase and the World’s Collective Heart Attack LONDON – Somewhere between the stained carpets of 11 Downing Street and a Pret à Manger queue that stretches to Calais, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is rehearsing how to say “we’re all poorer, but cheer up, pensioners get a bus pass” in a…
The Newest Body-Part Brand Name You’ll Pretend to Know A dispatch on Skene’s glands, global gender medicine, and the planet’s endless talent for turning trivia into trend By the time you finish this sentence, some influencer in Copenhagen will have posted a pelvic-floor workout “for your skenes,” hashtagged #SkeningRight. Feel free to nod knowingly; the…
Emma Willis: The Quiet Brit Quietly Rebooting Global Television While You Weren’t Looking PARIS — Somewhere between the collapse of the Euro, a pandemic that turned living rooms into offices, and a war that reminded Europe maps can still be redrawn, a 47-year-old mother of three from Birmingham has become the planet’s most politely ruthless…
LOS ANGELES—Somewhere between the sushi bars of Ginza and the steakhouses of Buenos Aires, the phrase “¡Vamos Dodgers!” has become as common a toast as any local battle cry. That a baseball team from a city that also exports Marvel franchises and micro-influencers now functions as a de-facto cultural attaché tells you everything about America’s…
